Chapter 15: Hunting Pirates for fun and Profit (Patreon)

“I told you it wasn’t gonna be romantic,” Jeb said to the teen stowaways as he eyeballed the drop and clipped a bit of the fuse off the dynamite. He’d gotten the stuff from an abandoned pre-Stitch work site after a little scouring of the local desolate wasteland.

About twenty seconds of drop time, he thought to himself, eyeballing the sand-pirates below them. Best place to drop the dynamite was the fire. It would send up a huge scatter of light, blinding them and potentially setting fires of its own before the light went out.

“When you said you were gonna fight Pirates, Mr. Trapper, I thought…

“it would be exciting?” Jeb asked, glancing up at the two kids who’d thought hiding in his jeep was a great idea. Wanda and Steven. The kids weren’t normally adventurous, but the P-word must have struck a nerve. “Swashbuckling even?”

Jeb used his knife and his thumb to cut a bit of the soft explosive off the end, managing the magnitude of the blast. The pirates were sitting pretty close to the fire, and Jeb didn’t wanna kill them outright.

“You gotta keep in mind that nearly every profession has been romanticized by Hollywood in some way or another. Real work is just that: Work. This isn’t too much different than crabbing. You know, sans pirates and dynamite.”

“Bombs away.” Jeb took out his lighter and lit the fuse, dropping it straight down.

Twenty seconds later, Jeb watched the tiny burning fuse disappear into the roaring bonfire in the center of the group. Bullseye.

There was a thunderous explosion and a tremendous flash of light as the explosives went off, scattering the bonfire in every direction, including the faces of the assembled pirates. They were bowled back by the blast, clutching their faces where they’d been burned, or rolling in the dirt to put out the fires.

There’s the shock.

The leader made himself known, standing up despite being blind, and hollering for his men to ‘rally’. He must have been using some kind of Ability, because Jeb could see the way every one of the pirates turned to heed his instructions. The effect was very pronounced from the air, where he could see all of them at once.

In a matter of seconds, the pirate was beginning to regain control of the situation. That’s not gonna happen.

“The yelling one on his feet in the middle there, by the olive colored tent. Take him out.”

Whomp.

There was a telltale sound of displacing air as Legolas shot a round of Annihilation Myst, creating a temporary vacuum in its passing. Then a large portion of the leader’s head ceased to exist, and his body toppled over into the remains of the fire.

And there’s the awe.

“Where’s it coming from!?” Jeb heard a distant scream from below.

“Krag’s dead!”

“Fuck this. Scatter! They can’t catch us all!”

The demoralized pirates dashed out into the wilderness in all directions, hoping to confuse whatever pursuit might be coming after them through sheer numbers.

“Legolas, mark any of them that didn’t bring water with them. Keep an eye on them.”

Legolas wobbled an affirmative.

Jeb glanced over at the stowaways.

“And that’s step one.”

Wanda was frowning, but Steven looked pretty green.

“You killed that guy.”

“Krag the unswerving,” Jeb said, pulling the bounty out of his pocket. “Wanted dead or alive for piracy, murder, assault, kidnapping…the list goes on.” Jeb looked back up and the teens were still giving him weird looks.

“Let’s put it this way,” Jeb said “The leader of a band of sand-pirates is a career criminal. That man was hardened, with few redeeming qualities, and I needed an effective way to get his men scattered. I’ve got a limited amount of time, and I very much want to expand my Myst repertoire before the ancient creature living in the nearby mountain ends the world.”

“What?”

“Nevermind. My point is, you’d be surprised how seldom the Dread Pirate Roberts turns out to be a sweet farmboy at heart.”

“Who?” Wanda asked, frowning.

“That’s it, I’m gonna make you kids watch Princess Bride next movie night. I mean, I know it romanticizes all the notions I’m trying to disabuse you of, but damn, it was a good movie.”

Steven doubled over and threw up over the side of the telekinetic platform Jeb was using to hold them above the desert scenery.

“Ugh, I don’t think I can do this,” Steven muttered, his gaze flicking back to the partially burnt corpse in the center of the camp.

“Don’t overthink it, Steven, take your time and process it. Most people have a violent reaction to their first murder.” Jeb said. “With the state of the world, you might as well get it out of the way sooner rather than later. I’m not gonna force you to kill anybody to ‘make a man out of you’ or something stupid like that, but if you’re emptying your guts when you should be running, it could get you killed, so I’m gonna ask you to get used to it.”

“Mr. Trapper, what did you do before the Stitching?”

“Why?”

“The other kids think you were a serial killer.”

Jeb blinked.

“And you went with me?” That was dumb.

Wanda shrugged.

Jeb sighed, dragging his hand across his face.

“I was in the army, alright?”

“Did you ever kill anybody?” Steven asked, wiping his face with his sleeve.

Old wounds resurfaced. Humid air, the smell of exotic flowers. Pulling the trigger. Dry air, the smell of baking rock. Pulling the trigger.  Cold air that froze the inside of your nose, the smell of moose-nipped willow trees. Pulling the trigger.

The scars had closed over, the bite had long since faded, but it was still irritating.

“…A few.”

“How many?”

“Young’uns, your questions are irritating me and I’m not answering any more of them.”

“Because of your PTSD? Is there a flare up when I talk about killing people?” Martha asked

“Where did you hear that!?” Jeb demanded.

“Mr. Everett.”

That wrinkly-ass English teacher is gonna rue the day… Jeb thought, clenching his fist.

“The D in PTSD stands for disorder, meaning in order to qualify for full-blown PTSD it has to be interfering with your life somehow. Since I can function totally fine, I, by definition, no longer have PTSD. I’ve been able to sleep indoors for most of a year now, and the mention of killing does nothing to me.”

“How about collapsing ceilings?”

A spike of panic shot through Jeb’s spine, his skin turning cold. He reflexively glanced up, spotting a tiny crack in the starry sky above him.

Jeb’s legs went weak, and he collapsed to the ground.

What the hell is that?

“You guys see that too, right?” Jeb asked as the crack in the sky widened, revealing an iron beam.

“I see it. How about Tyler?” Wanda asked. “The human who took your place under the steel beam? Does his Impact still rest easily, or does guilt cause it to stir inside you like a fitful dreamer? He was meant for great things, after all. You, not so much.”

Jeb’s hair stood on end. What’s going on, this couldn’t be rea- No, it definitely isn’t real. Something was messing with Jeb’s head, interrogating him in the guise of two of his kids. He’d already told them more than he would ever tell a stranger, even given away the source of his deepest fear.

And they’re using it against me.

A thin sliver of anger lit itself, burning white hot like magnesium. Through an effort of will, Jeb tore his eyes away from The Spike falling through the sky, descending inexorably towards him.

“Whoever you are, you’re not welcome here.” Jeb said, meeting Wanda’s gaze. The world around them began fading slowly. From the edges of Jeb’s vision, the world darkened. Steven Faded from sight, Wanda’s body turned to nothing, until he was staring at a disembodied pair of flawless green eyes. Beautiful and cold.

They were the only part of the dream that was outside of him, watching him from outside his mind, aloof and confident, like he was an amusing insect.

“Please, Jebediah, vampire rules? You’re better than that.” A disembodied feminine voice spoke it was stilted, with a thick accent and strange, clipped consonants, like a beast trying very hard to speak like a human.

“You’re not welcome here.”

“I can’t be faulted for checking in on my cute grandson, can I?” The emerald eyes asked. “Call it the pride of ownership.”

“You’re not welcome here!” Jeb shouted at the top of his lungs, vividly experiencing the pain of straining his voice. His head pounded in time to the drumming of his heart.

“Very well. Dream as you will, Scion.”

The Spike descended from above, crushing Jeb into the bed, caving in his chest with a crunch he felt in every vein in his body as the pressure made his eyeballs –

****

“Gah!” Jeb lurched awake as something stung his eyes. Legolas was tossed away by Jeb’s violent movement. Jeb felt the stinging pain in his eyeball and the raw feeling in his throat. It seemed as if the little robot had smacked Jeb in the eyeball with a rotor to wake him up.

“Shut up,” Smartass groaned, pulling a half-burned piece of Krag’s vest over her face.

“They trying to sneak up on us or something?” Jeb asked, glancing around the abandoned camp.

Legolas flashed a red diode.

“I was just mindlessly screaming in my sleep then?”

Legolas blinked a green diode.

“Right,” Jeb said, glancing up at the sky. It was starting to brighten. Sunrise was minutes away. Slipping out of his borrowed sleeping bag, Jeb rolled over and reached past Smartass to pull a cigar out of the corpse’s vest pocket. Jeb didn’t smoke often, but it felt like a special occasion.

“I learned two things from that dream, Legs,” Jeb said, searching his pockets for the lighter he’d used to bomb the pirates the night before.

“First, the gods were right, and the M-word really is messing with me.” Jeb said, ticking off a finger. “And it probably would have been more prudent to kill me.”

“And second, I wanna swing by a Walmart bargain bin or loot some suburbs on the way back, see if we can find The Princess Bride on DVD. I think it’d be a good choice for movie night.”

Legolas blinked red and green, waggling in midair.

“I don’t know if you would enjoy it, being a robot and all. Swashbuckling isn’t really…” Jeb paused, glancing down at the cigar. “It just occurred to me that I have no idea what I’m actually smoking.”

Jeb shrugged and clenched the cigar between his teeth before he hoisted himself to his foot and slipped his prosthetic on, disabling the traps he’d placed around the camp in case the pirates tried to come back and grab their food and water.

He needed them thirsty, after all.

***Nug Fronz, level 21 Baker***

“I swear to all the gods,” Nug panted as he tried to crawl deeper into the shade of the tiny outcropping of rock. “If you help me out of this, I’ll go home and take over my father’s shop. I was wrong. Baking is exciting enough for me.”

As a melas, Nug was just as resistant to heat as a keegan, but while a keegan could go for weeks without water if necessary, Melas needed to drink fairly often, depending on the quality of their diet. Nug’s had been lean these last few years. Only a day after the one-legged madman scattered them, and he was already in trouble, having gotten separated from the others during the panicked retreat.

He hadn’t realized how wholly unfit for the desert he really was until he was separated from the ones who knew how to survive. He rapidly gotten thirsty, and considered heading back for the waterskins, but when he heard the sounds of screaming in that direction, he’d dropped the idea and broken into a jog over the entire night. He had been convinced he could find his own water.

How hard could finding water be?

When he’d tried to drink cactus juice, he’d just gotten sick, losing even more water in the process. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Now he was huddled under a rock, trying to conserve the last of his strength of one final push to the west. Maybe, just maybe if he licked the dew off the rocks and travelled at night, he would be able to go far enough west to run across a road and be saved by a passing caravan.

Even thirst-addled as he was, the irony of throwing himself upon the mercy of a caravan was not lost on him.

A hoarse chuckle crossed Nug’s lips.

At least I’m not famous enough for a bounty. Nug thought idly. Nug had always maintained a low profile. Perhaps it was through incompetence rather than restraint, but that was besides the point. Nobody knew his name nor cared too much about him.

All he had to do was make it back home, then make up a story about where he’d been the last half year.

He’d tell his father he spent some time travelling with a caravan which got attacked by pirates, then spent a few months among them as an indentured servant before they were attacked.

It was close enough to the truth to pass casual observation. Nobody had to know he’d joined up with them on his own because he wanted to roam the desert sands as a sand-pirate.

The idea that he’d be a successful pirate with the baker class, feared far and wide as the terror of the sands, seemed…a bit naïve in retrospect.

Crunch.

He stiffened as he heard the sound of sand crunching underfoot. If he leaned over and looked behind him, he would be able to see who or what was walking up behind him. It had been a rough couple days, and if he was about to get eaten by a wild banthar, he’d rather not see it coming.

Nug scrunched his eyes shut and waited for the telltale crunch of his spine being severed by powerful jaws.

“Afternoon.” A voice said from above.

He opened his eyes and spotted a human, silhouetted by the light of the sun behind him. He was wearing a long coat to ward off the desert heat and one of his legs appeared to be made of wood. Nug could barely make out one of Krag’s cigar’s clenched between his teeth.

“Name and class.” He said, pulling out a stack of papers and flipping through them, while peering at Nug

The bounty hunters found me! Oh no, im…completely nameless.

“Nug Fronz, level twenty-one Baker.” Nug croaked.

“Oh? Whaddya know, you’re not on the list.” The human said, flipping back through his papers. He paused on one picture, his gaze flicking back and forth between Nug and the portrait. Nug’s breathing stopped for a moment, absolutely terrified that he might be killed in someone else’s place because of a passing resemblance.

“Nah.” The bounty hunter grumbled, stuffing the bounty posters back in his vest, allowing Nug to breathe again.

“Nug, do you know where you are?”

“I’m in the desert ten miles west of Solmnath.”

“Wrong. You’re a lot further out than that. Nug, you are going to die.”

Nug’s heart leapt into his chest. “Are you gonna..”

“Probably not. The desert is fixing to kill you first.”

I kinda figured.

The human squatted down beside Nug, his features coming out of the shadow as he came closer.

Hey, you’re that guy that shook hands with the emperor, Nug thought, but he was too tired, and too thirsty to say it.

“Just gotta check something,” The bounty hunter said, pulling a river rock out of his pocket and holding it above the dirt beside Nug. A dribble of water emerged and sank into the soil, like the man was squeezing it right out of the rock.

Nug’s body acted against his will. It was halfway through stuffing the damp, sandy mud into his mouth before he came to coughing and sputtering the grainy filth out of his mouth.

“Yeah, looks like you’re metaphorically fully cooked.”

I’m…what?

“Nug Fronz, how would you like to make a Deal?” The human gave Nug a grin that send shivers of unease through him.

Maybe getting eaten by a banthar would have been better.

***Jeb***

Alright, today’s haul. Less than I’d hoped, better than I’d feared, Jeb thought, looking over the three Ability books and two severed fingers.

Desert pirates were – surprise – fairly adept at surviving the desert. Although that didn’t apply to all of them, and when you were doing anything in bulk, it was all about numbers, numbers, numbers.

Of the forty or so pirates they’d scattered, half a dozen showed no aptitude for survival, and a further three were either disliked or stupid enough to find themselves completely alone out there in the wilderness.

With Smartass and Leglas working as his sheepdogs, they were able to keep track of these people, hovering overhead until they were on the cusp of delirium.

Once they were exhausted and reduced to their most basic instincts, Jeb approached, offering the amateur survivalists a gallon of water and a ride to the nearest road.

In exchange for their Ability.

It honestly wasn’t a fair trade, but fairy Deals thrived on honest unfairness.

Let’s see what we’ve got here, Jeb thought, scanning the assemble tomes.

Myst and Microbes. That one came from the baker, and Jeb assumed it gave a baker some way of affecting yeast. Meaning a talented baker might be able to become a decent brewer, and visa versa.

Simple Imbuements was a smaller book only forty pages or so. It came from a Swordsman who could imbue his blade with Myst to make it stronger and sharper.

Body and Nerve. That book came from a man with the Rogue Class. The Ability he’d taken from the Fate dimension had been Stunning Strike, an ability that allowed the rogue to render their victim insensate.

Hmm.. Jeb was most interested in Body and Nerve, followed by Simple imbuements, then Myst and Microbes.

Jeb pulled out the travel lamp he’d whittled for himself in his downtime. It was a simple affair; Two layers of Lens and Myst Prism sandwiched together. Jeb had used the asphalt-tinted sunlight lens he’d gotten on the trip to Solmnath, and bought the prism separately. He carved them flat and wrapped the two in a narrow band of Gold so Myst couldn’t get in from the sides.

The passive rays generated by ambient Myst touching the prism were all funneled through the lens, where they created a tiny ball of sunlight with the faint scent of asphalt about eight inches above the flat gold-banded disk.

As the sun went down, Jeb got his back comfortable against a rock, set his notebook beside him, then got to studying.

First things first: Speed-reading.

The Body and Nerve book was full of information about how the body interacts with Myst and how to disrupt it, which was all interesting, but not immediately useful, because the actual ability to do so hinged heavily on the ability to use Zesh’nei’s Translation to make the user’s Myst more in line with the opponent’s. If Jeb tried to do it, he would simply tear a body apart with his telekinetic Myst.

Not good for stunning someone.

Jeb jotted down notes of every mention of Zesh’nei’s Translation, but didn’t make a lot of headway on figuring out how it worked.

Simple Imbuements was a gold mine. It offered no information about Zesh’nei’s Translation, but what it did offer was remarkable.

It described a technique whereby a Myst-user imbued their weapon with extra kinetic strength and sharpness using a honeycomb-like structure.

The key benefits of imbuing your Myst in an object with a pattern like that were:

1: Use less of it for the same amount of space

2: Better fracture strength than a solid structure

3: The design included a method of allowing Myst to flow almost like sap from undamaged honeycomb pieces to the damaged edge of the blade, allowing it to maintain a high level of sharpness through a limited form of self-repair.

Me likey, Jeb thought, flipping to a new tab in his notebook specifically for the Simple Imbuements book, and jotting down the highlights, along with a reminder to ask Eddie if there might be a better superstructure than honeycomb.

Once he was done with that, Jeb moved on to the Myst and Microbes book.

He fully expected it to be chock full of information that he couldn’t use due to the limitations of his Myst, and he was right.

Jeb flipped through the book, idly speed-reading passage after passage about the slight difference between Growth Myst vs. Decay Myst, which worked better for what microbe, and when to alternate between the two. It included information about microbe lifecycles, musts and other stuff that Jeb was fairly certain wouldn’t come in handy anytime soon.

Jeb was about two thirds of the way through the book when a specific paragraph caught his eye.

Saccharomycetaceae  Viridihomina is especially sensitive to neutral Myst balance in the air, therefore it is recommended to avoid using Zesh’nei’s Translation, as the intra-Myst friction may create minor resonance in the ambient Myst. Such an event can cause the spores to either wither or grow out of control. A more efficient, albeit slower conversion, such as Doran’s Naturalization, is recommend when using these temperamental microbes.

Friction? FRICTION!?

Jeb’s eyes widened and he went back to his notes, writing down a new subheading in bold underline.

FRICTION

Friction is involved in Zesh’nei’s Translation.

Friction against what? Intra Myst? Rubbing against itself?

He frowned. Can Myst rub against itself?

Jeb said aside the books and rubbed his hands together before spreading out his palms. He created two separate strands of string Myst. Jeb watched as his glowing orange strands of Myst passed harmlessly through each other, as they always had.

Frowning, Jeb began running them through each other at high speeds, trying to produce some kind of side effect. They whirled through each other faster and faster with no discernable effect.

Well, he created a slight breeze as the strands picked up speed and caught the air, but it sure as hell wasn’t ‘wind Myst’.

What am I doing wrong? Jeb scrapped the idea of running them through each other sideways and instead lined the two strings of telekinetic Myst practically on top of each other, then yanked them in opposite directions like he was trying to pull-start a chainsaw.

Nothing.

Jeb frowned. What could the Myst possibly be rubbing against? The sindio didn’t seem to need any outside equipment to heal and twist the fabric of space.

On the other hand, I didn’t see him whip two strands of Myst against each other like an idiot, either. The spells the keegan had used were so tight, so precise and laser-focused that an amateur like Jeb couldn’t even process how they worked.

And Myst can’t seem to touch itself, either, Jeb thought, looping two strands of Myst idly through each other, each passing harmlessly through the loop emitting from the other hand.

Jeb’s Myst got increasingly complex and convoluted as he idly knotted the Myst strands around themselves each time they failed to catch the strand coming from his other hand.

He blinked.

Knotting around themselves?

Jeb released his two strands of telekinetic Myst from his control, allowing them sot dissipate into the atmosphere, then raised, just his right hand, creating a single, thick strand of Myst

He studied the thread for a moment, wiggling it back and forth in front of himself to confirm he had total control over it. Then he tried to pass the tip of the string through the base, where it emanated from his palm.

It didn’t go through. There was a faint sensation of resistance, which went away when he stopped trying to use the string to cut off its own source.

It has to be the same thread. Am I on the right track, or am I just wasting my time?

He looped the string down and started dragging it across itself, using it like both the bow and string of a violin.

There was a faint sense of something happening, but it never quite fell into place, like struggling against a rubber band, Just when Jeb was getting somewhere, the Myst snapped back into place.

Frustrated, Jeb gave the hard, chainsaw-pull yank, dragging the string of telekinetic Myst violently across itself.

There was a flash of blinding light, and Jeb was hurtled backwards, bowling over his sitting rock like a ragdoll, limbs flung outward. He came to a halt a few breathless seconds later, staring up into the dark void of the afterimage, watching the smoke curl off his eyebrows out of the corner of his eyes.

“Jeb!” Smartass came into his field of vision, standing on his somewhat singed forehead. “Are you okay!?”

“I think I’m onto something,” Jeb said with a cough.

I just made heat and light. Demonstrably not telekinesis.

Excellent.